My Wedding Day with Jenny Egan: Our canoeist friends made a paddle arch for us to walk through

Jenny Egan and Jon Simmons on their wedding day. Pictures: Jenny McCarthy

We got married on November 20, 2021. Jon and I both represent our countries as canoeists, and our competition season typically runs from April through to September. A lot of our friends who would be coming to the wedding are also international canoeists, so it really appealed to us to have a winter wedding because we knew people would be able to enjoy themselves more.

We had the ceremony and the party after in BrookLodge & Macreddin Village in Wicklow. We’d been looking around at wedding venues and when we went to BrookLodge we felt what I can only describe as a warming embrace from the staff there. 

They also have a chapel on-site and it has the Ballycrean River passing by it. That was so special because we wanted to have water near where we were getting married. You know, it's our life. The minute we went there, we were just like, 'yeah, this is where we want to get married'.

Jenny Egan and Jon Simmons on their wedding day. 

For my dress, I always wanted to support Irish design. I had read about the beautiful designer Kathy de Stafford, so my mom and I went into her in town. Kathy created a bespoke dress for me. It was a white satin with beautiful hand-sewn petals on the top of the dress with a train that incorporated the petals, and the look was finished off with the veil. My mum and myself both really enjoyed the experience of seeing the dress come to life.

On the morning of the wedding, the sun was shining and then we had a light sprinkling of rain during the ceremony and the photographs. That meant we got a beautiful rainbow shining over us, which was so beautiful.

Jon and I were very involved in the planning of the wedding, with our families. We wanted it to really reflect us. Romy McAuley was our celebrant, and we had an interfaith ceremony. We incorporated two rituals into our ceremony — parent recognition and the candle unity.

Music played a big part in the ceremony. We had a string quartet in the chapel, and we had music throughout the ceremony. Jon and I signed the register to Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Stevie Wonder, and after we were pronounced husband and wife we danced down the aisle to Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen.

Outside the chapel, our canoeist friends made a paddle arch for us as we walked across the bridge. This is a tradition among canoeists when they get married and it was very special to us. We had lots of international athlete friends from the UK, Denmark, Austria and Canada with us on the day and helped form this paddle arch.

During the ceremony, Jon couldn’t wait and went to kiss me before he was instructed to by Romy. She said to him “you need to wait a few minutes”, and of course, the chapel erupted with laughter. Also, during the ceremony, a butterfly fluttered around us in the chapel — that felt quite magical actually.

Afterwards, we had a drinks reception where the string quartet played again, and then we had our good friend, the world-famous saxophonist Derek O’Connor, play us into the room to This Girl by Kungs V Cookin’ on 3 Burners, and everyone was up dancing, it was great.

Jenny Egan and Jon Simmons on their wedding day. 

Our band for the night was Ultrasound, which is made up of our friends Gary and Shane O’Connor and singer Gavin Phelan. They were amazing. Our first dance was Perfect by Ed Sheeran, which was so appropriate for us as we were so young when we started our relationship — I was 15 and Jon was 16.

In the garden at the back of the hall, where the Ballycrean River wraps around the venue, we had braziers lit with marshmallows to toast. Everyone had a great time, dancing the night away. It was an amazing party. I think we were up until about 4am.

The highlights of the day for me were when my mum fastened the satin buttons on the back of my dress; we had been through the whole dress-making process together and it was about to be seen by all our guests. 

I’ll also never forget when dad and I first stepped into the chapel and I saw Jon at the top of the aisle with tears in his eyes and all these people gathered there to celebrate our wedding, I remember thinking “we did it, we made this happen”.

• Jenny Egan-Simmons is an international canoeist, she is a multiple World Championship, European Championship and World Cup medallist for Ireland. Jon Simmons is the National Canoe Sprint Coach for Ireland and is also a multiple World Cup medallist for Great Britain.